


once, in paradise, we were blind and we were numb

by wanderNavi



Series: i promised you no such thing as heaven [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, an outside POV on zuko’s spirit shenanigans, books? comics? what are those?, iroh: where’s my nephew, setting the stage for political machinations, that we won’t revisit in force for another fifty thousand words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:15:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27675256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderNavi/pseuds/wanderNavi
Summary: As Fire Lord, Ozai has the authority to forbid his brother from finding the banished prince. He does not have the authority to forbid Iroh from investigating spirits.Or: subversive interpretations of orders, a book of love ballads, poster collections, and many near misses.
Series: i promised you no such thing as heaven [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1924483
Comments: 14
Kudos: 77





	1. AN INTERLUDE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the product of me pacing for a whole day going, “Where on earth is Iroh at this point of time.”

About three months after Iroh’s nephew disappeared into the mountains and mud of the Earth Kingdom, beyond the panicked grasp of his restrained hands, the boy’s name disappears. Iroh awakens to a blinding headache and static clinging to his teeth. In letters and notes, he finds bubbling smears of ink where familiar characters had been before. A tangle of scratches mars the jade and obsidian pendant he tucks into a velvet lined box.

What has his nephew done?

At every corner, men and women loyal to Ozai upon the Dragon Throne obstruct and report every one of Iroh’s movements. He requests a ship first one month after his nephew is banished and again in light of the new, alarming development. The port ministers and clerks grant him strained smiles each time. They hem and haw, shuffling scrolls in their hands and across their desks and apologize profusely – “We’re sorry, Prince Iroh, but the ports are busy with prioritizing military convoys. I’m sorry, Prince Iroh, do you have the exit forms? Oh, you do? Then, do you have the writ of intent and signed administerial decree sixteen and your declaration of absence? We’re very sorry, your highness, you’ll have to check with the department of royal affairs. We can’t handle that here.”

“No,” comes the empathic answer from the Fire Lord’s office.

General Okazana dignifies to visit an old friend from the officer academy on a rare leave to see his wife and three daughters still at home. With the straight-faced deadpan he addresses to all his colleagues, he tells Iroh, “This is why you shouldn’t have left the military. Now you must deal with what everyone outside the army and navy must deal with, royalty or not. My wife complains about it every day.”

“Can an old friend get some help?” Iroh asks.

Okazana scoffs, “Everyone knows why you’re asking for that ship, you daft dragon. The Fire Lord’s not letting you leave until that spirits forsaken Earth Kingdom winter claims its full share of victims. Now, let’s stop talking about this. Have you gone soft in the last few years? I don’t want any ‘special orders’ before I get a chance to see my girls.”

A week later, Iroh visits Okazana’s home for a meal of his wife’s delicious fried tiger shrimp laid on a bed of string snow peas, garnished with fresh honeysuckles plucked from her private garden. A shared bottle of sake later, he returns to the palace that evening to the announcement of his niece’s ascension to crown princess. The Fire Sages finally completed all the rites and ceremonies they deemed necessary in the dual disappearance of Iroh’s nephew and the boy’s name.

* * *

Despite being all the way at the back of the line of succession not that long ago, Iroh’s niece wears her new status like it had always been her birthright.

As crown princess, Azula no longer attends the Royal Fire Academy for Girls, instead spending her days filled with tutors and training. At her rate, she’ll be going on inspections of the military outposts in the colonies to train her leadership and statecraft within the year.

On mutual silent agreement, neither Iroh nor Azula approaches the other about advice for the new crown heir. Not when the old matrons, Li and Lo, grill her on the diatribes and theses Iroh memorized as a teenager at Azulon’s side. Not when they declare her mastery of all flame-based forms complete and usher her into the deadly embrace of lightning.

Azula doesn’t seek Iroh out after her first session in Ozai’s war council. Nor her second. However, after her sixth meeting, she hunts him down in one of the Western Palace’s courtyards, where he’s watching the blooming water lilies. After humoring his theatrics for precisely the interval of time deemed polite, she asks, “Did Generals Ikasa and Do Ren have some past disagreement in the field that aren’t in any records?”

“The history of their disagreements aren’t in the records because they clashed off the field,” Iroh replies. “Many years ago, now-Colonel Naoto invited them both to a hunting competition. But no one could agree on a victor and they’ve been competing and arguing since. Your grandfather always made sure to keep them separate.”

It’s not the full scope of the picture, but Iroh’s niece is capable enough to construct the rest: rival schools, rival regiments, a fundamental difference in policy and temperament, near completely incompatible personalities, and the carefully stacked system of cutthroat court political competitions Ozai thrives in.

Azula folds this new information into her web of players and sips her tea.

* * *

A fortnight later, during their second carefully staged meeting over tea, Azula sets down a pearl-handled dagger at her side of the table, daring Iroh to say something.

“You looked away as Father burned my brother’s face, Uncle,” Azula says. “It’s too late to make amends for that now.”

He looked away and he missed his chance to soften the blow of the boy’s exile. Winter must be setting into the Earth Kingdom right now with a baleful vengeance Iroh’s nephew has no experience in countering. It catches every fresh army recruit from the home islands off guard in their first blizzard. A former prince with limited survival training will not know how to prepare against the perpetual muddy ice or the tight grip which the common people cling to their grain and rice.

Iroh says, “Have you found a knife compatible with your bending?”

“I don’t need it. I’m not so weak as to prefer a blade in a fight,” she dismisses.

Ten months after the banishment of Iroh’s nephew, Crown Princess Azula leaves on her first tour of the northeastern front. She takes her pearl-handled knife with her.

* * *

Discussion of Iroh’s nephew fills with euphemisms: _the banished prince, the young former crown prince, your nephew, my dear brother._

And then, when the Fire Sages and the clerk staff finally blot out the rusted and corrupted ink from the registers and the family line: silence.

A malevolent spirit.

* * *

As Fire Lord, Ozai has the authority to forbid his brother from finding the banished prince. He does not have the authority to forbid Iroh from investigating spirits.

Iroh pours over his collections amassed over his many years, especially those texts gathered after his wife and son passed away. In his mail, he receives musty scrolls on earthen spirits, guardians of old mountains and misty valleys and ancient rivers. The place staff hands him each package brazenly already opened. They ruin an attempted surprise from one of Iroh’s more frequent correspondents. A faint ring stains the book’s cover. He sniffs it. Recently over-steeped pu’er tea from the clerks.

The package’s accompanying letter, once Iroh decodes its message, tells him:

_I’ve bookmarked the passages I hope pertain to your request. Even the black orchid has difficulties tracking down your target – some mental block? Be careful._

Then Iroh checks the set of Pai Sho moves scrawled at the end of the letter and realizes his eastern plot is being taken over by an all-out assault from his opponent.

Loath as Iroh is to mar a rare reprint of Qin Shiwen’s anthology on autumn love and duty, he flicks through the tan pages, scanning through the thin, bold strokes with a small dropper in hand. Under the invisible light of a special glowstone gifted to him five years ago, Iroh follows the trail of numbers from poem to poem. His information stiches together word by word.

Rumors of a scarred teenager trail in from the south and east. There’d been odd spirit activity observed at the great peninsula of the Earth Kingdom’s eastern coast: a pack of snickering beasts patiently waiting in a small port town for several weeks. The inhabitants aren’t willing to talk about what they witnessed, not in enough detail for any form of identification. Then abruptly as they came, the spirits disappeared.

It’s not a lot to go off of – old news, stale after several weeks of mangled word of mouth.

Iroh writes back, capturing his opponent’s too hasty vanguard.

* * *

Princess Azula and General Okazana return to the caldera on the same day.

Iroh still hasn’t said a single word to his brother in the almost year since the farce of an Agni Kai and stands silently to the side as the Fire Lord welcomes his daughter back home. Her procession through the city, from the harbor to the palace, takes a full hour. She presents her report on the inspections to her father in the throne room to great pomp and ceremony. The palace throws a full party for her return.

As time approaches midnight and the celebrations wane, Okazana catches Iroh before departing for home and tells him, “You’ve been stuck in this city for too long. I can hear it in your laugh. Sana’s twentieth birthday is in four days. I’ll see you there.”

“Demanding me for your daughter’s birthday?” Iroh asks, faintly bemused. “I don’t know if her husband would approve.”

“You’ll be there,” Okazana blandly insists, then leaves.

When Iroh arrives at the general’s estate bearing a roll of fine, pale orange silk for his second daughter and her months-old baby, the first person to greet him is Colonel Naoto.

“Prince Iroh!” he effusively exclaims and bows in greeting.

“Colonel Naoto, it’s been too long,” Iroh replies with a smile. “How have you been? How’s the beautiful Tomoe? And I heard your son was recently promoted.”

Naoto leads them past the servants whisking away Iroh’s gift. “We’re well, Prince Iroh, thank you for your kind concern. Tomoe and I are so glad to have our son home for the new year’s. Not many can enjoy such fortunes. The southeastern front’s been a mess.”

“As it always is,” Iroh acknowledges more somberly.

They turn a corner, revealing a stone garden courtyard and General Okazana rapidly approaching with faint alarm that he wasn’t the one to first greet his royal guest himself. He bows in apology. “Prince Iroh, please, this way.”

If it wasn’t for his men’s deep-set loyalty and the unflagging victories Okazana consistently won under the Fire Nation’s banner for the last thirty-four years, Fire Lord Ozai would have eliminated the man long ago. A fact which Okazana regularly flaunts with his inscrutable aplomb.

Seated at his table, besides his family, is a loose collection of army officers and navy commanders with lax loyalties to the current Fire Lord. Commander Uziro, who should have made admiral years ago, and never forgives Ozai for passing him over for promotion. General Ni Shu, who must spend every night praying that Iroh falls off a cliff after his division usurped hers as the Fire Nation’s best, but who wishes all the more fervently that Ozai would die of mortifyingly embarrassing asphyxiation from an amateur assassination in the middle of a banquet for everyone to publicly see. Maybe with her own hands around his neck in revenge for the sudden death of her beloved Fire Lord. Further down the table, Dazi, forced into retirement by an amputated leg. And near abouts every other ally of his that Okazana could gather in a week.

Over platters of fish steeped in rich, dark sesame soy oil, crisply roasted pig deer glinting from its own fat in the light, boiled crabs the width of two fists stuffed with orange eggs, braised eggplants and sheered baby corn and parchment-thin slices of dry-aged lamb, all accompanied by fine wine worth a corporal’s yearly salary and fragrant, pure white rice, the party makes merry.

The hours pass by in a stream of gossip and philosophy, never once touching upon the war Sana detests for constantly taking away her father and her elder siblings, out of deference for her birthday. Iroh ropes a begrudging Ni Shu into discussing the more unique martial forms she witnessed on her campaigns. Further down the table, Colonel Naoto laughs uproariously, swiftly swept away be a few cups of alcohol.

In the middle of nobleman Xie gripping at Iroh about the deplorably state of the road infrastructure in the colonies, Okazana smoothly interrupts, “My apologies, gentlemen. If I may speak with Prince Iroh for a moment?”

Xie bows out agreeably, saying, “No troubles, General Okazana. In fact, the hour draws late. My wife and I wish your daughter and your wonderful family well. We should be going soon.”

Okazana nods in thanks and scans the room for any possible demands of his attention. He says, “Come. Let’s speak privately.”

Iroh follows him out to the courtyards more befitting of a scholar than a general. Servants swiftly set up lamps around a low table bearing a fresh pot of black jin jun mei tea. At Okazana’s extended hand, offering, “Please, have a seat,” they sit on cushions embroidered with phoenix herons.

Ruthlessly cutting to the chase as he pours Iroh a cup, Okazana asks, “Are you looking for your second corpse in the Earth Kingdom?”

“He’s alive,” Iroh corrects, affronted.

“Then for your sake, I hope the Fire Lord doesn’t know that,” the general says, sharp. “He won’t let you leave until the only thing for you to bring back is a pile of bones.”

A plume of ire seeps through Iroh, though he keeps his emotions in check as he says, “I am aware of my brother’s intensions. Rather than take matters into his own hands, he allows nature to have its way, like the ocean devouring the land. Still, even the Fire Lord cannot prevent me from revisiting the spirit world.”

Because there’s definitely spirits involved: the old kinds, rarely mentioned in surviving texts. Iroh can only feel the dark edges of his nephew’s bargain, one corner of the puzzle. There are the dramatic consequences, of which everyone is aware. But Iroh, in his more dedicated search than any of Ozai’s people, can feel the alien imposition on his thoughts, can track the way maps blur and warp while he chases rumors. The black orchid and the purple iris of the White Lotus tried hiring a shirshu, but the poor beast only paced in confused circles. Something dearly doesn’t want his nephew found.

Across the table, Okazana’s dark eyes watch him, a rare pure black made all the darker by the night. He sighs at Iroh’s stubborn worry.

“Grief has changed you, my prince,” he says while refilling Iroh’s cup. “You lost much over these many years.”

Yes, his wife, his son, and more before that.

Once, when Iroh was younger, much younger, he wished that at least one of his younger siblings would survive to full adulthood. None of the many assassination attempts brought his family down, but death came regardless. Whip-smart Raisho who had been too sickly. Proud Chimoro, felled by a massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami while on military inspection, just two months before her wedding day. Aize, by their father’s callousness, after speaking his mind too boldly one too many times.

Well, the younger Iroh got his wish, in the form of Ozai upon the throne and a banished, burned nephew. And the Iroh of now is not willing to add his nephew, desperately seeking Ozai’s impossible love, to his mausoleum of dead family members.

Okazana drains his cup and says with fake annoyance, “Fine, I’ll help you, you old dragon. Give me time and I’ll get you onto that blasted continent.”

* * *

As part of the stuffing cradling a porcelain vase in emerald green silk, Iroh pulls out a tightly folded poster made on cheap, pulpy paper. Scrawled in simple characters marred by misplaced strokes, the poster offers seven hundred gold pieces for the capture of someone going by the Blue Spirit for the crime of what seems to be general chaos inflicted upon a group of small-time gangs. He flips the poster over. On its back, in sarcastic, educated script:

_Know many firebenders wielding dual dao?_

Iroh breathes out in deep gratitude at this hint that his nephew is well enough to cause such massive trouble. Then he frowns. What _is_ his nephew doing?

* * *

Before she departs on her next mission from the Fire Lord – which she views as an honor and a symbol of his trust in her loyalty, instead of as a tactic to keep her out of the capital and her burgeoning political threat subdued – Crown Princess Azula tracks Iroh down in the palace’s largest library.

“Fairy tales, Uncle?” she asks scathingly.

“There are only a few dozen first-edition copies of Qin Shiwen’s poetry in the world,” Iroh tells her. “This old man’s going on a trip soon and can’t bring his favorite books with him. So, I thought I’d reread them while I have the chance.”

She sends the book a glance of skepticism that folds into a frown when she notices Ursa’s handwriting in the calligraphy scrolling down a bookmark Iroh pulled out from the pages. Her eyes flick away, and she says, “My convey will be escorting your ship for the length of your trip. We won’t have time for any detours.”

Okazana pulled through after several months of yanking on connections and calling in favors. He did the best he could, but the Fire Lord isn’t lulled into a deep enough sense of complacency with his elder brother yet to relax the constant surveillance on Iroh’s movements.

“Certainly,” Iroh says agreeably. “Luckily, it won’t take any detours to see the apple maple blossoms of the Kibei provinces. The hills are covered with the trees blooming in summer, just in time for our arrival.”

Azula scoffs. “If apple blossoms could win the war, we’d already have Fire Nation royalty within the walls of Ba Sing Se. Stick to your useless Pai Sho, Uncle.”

* * *

General Okazana glares forlornly at Iroh over his cup of wine. “Prince Iroh, you’re making me regret coming home for the new year’s celebrations. Why do you do this to me?”

“Ah, but I heard such a fascinating tale about a spirit the last time I visited the Earth Kingdom. Unfortunately, my escorts didn’t give me enough time to hear how it ended,” Iroh says. “Thank you for all you’ve done for me, old friend. Fortunately for your efforts, the Fire Lord seems to be tiring of tracking my every move.”

Okazana grumbles and glares at the twists and holes in the boulders balanced in his garden instead of flinging his cup at Iroh out of frustration as a lesser man would have. “How fortunate,” he says, caustic. “Do give me warning when you finish your charades with the Fire Lord, so I have enough time to prevent him from executing my family out of anger.”

Tempering his smile, Iroh swears to him with more serious solemnity, “Your family will be protected. My brother doesn’t seem to realize your plans yet.”

With a snort, Okazana drains his wine. “He gave me Ikasa and Do Ren for the joint assault along the eastern vanguard. Of course he has no ideas about my plans yet. He thinks they’re a pair of idiots too busy bickering and licking his shoes.”

Grinning, Iroh refills Okazana’s cup.

He’s not grinning when two months later, Iroh crashes into dead end after dead end. His limited explorations of the spirit realm unearths no willing helpers. He has three more wanted posters for the Blue Spirit and enough rumors to fill a book on the boy’s exploits, but no nephew in the flesh. The White Lotus also runs out of leads. One moment, the Blue Spirit was active and at large across the Earth Kingdom, the next he disappeared into the air.

* * *

News of the Avatar’s return to the world lands like a bomb, sending shockwaves racing through the lands. The moment he hears, Iroh dashes off a single message to Okazana: _Now_.

Then, Iroh takes his minders on a merry shopping trip into a busy port town, ladens each soldier accompanying him with the heaviest trinkets he can find, and plunges into the thick crowds of the market square. The alarmed shouting rises behind him as he swiftly strips out of his armor to his set of plain cotton robes underneath. His top knot pulled into a more Earth Kingdom bun, a hat placed on top, and his bags swapped out, Iroh makes his way towards the safe house prepared a day’s ride away.

The Avatar flies north faster than Iroh expects, and a tiny piece of his mind forever trained to be his father’s military heir whispers admiration for the power of air control and flight. Why, if the armies could fly as deftly as the Avatar, the war would had been won decades ago.

Messenger hawks deliver each new piece of news to Iroh amid the flurry of the Order of the White Lotus kicking into higher gear: Commander Zhao abandons his blockade of Kyoshi Island and the coast west of the Si Wong Desert; the Avatar causes several hundred dollars of property damage in Omashu; he and his companions destroy a prison barge. Whatever the Avatar had been up to while in hiding for the last hundred years, he’s not holding back anymore.

Iroh’s skirting along the great desert when his nephew does his best to give Iroh a heart attack by suddenly reappearing to break the Avatar out of _Pohuai Stronghold_. His host watches his paled face worriedly, and asks, “Grand Master, what’s the matter?”

_He’s safe_ , Iroh reminds himself. This news is days old, the Avatar got away fine. Zhao’s frothing at the mouth to imprison the Blue Spirit as well, though he’s operating under the assumption that the Avatar’s sudden help is a dissenter from the colonies or the Earth Kingdom itself. But his nephew is not captured or executed. He’s in the wind, back from his year long silence.

“Nothing much, just an unexpected shock,” Iroh assures his host. She makes a noise of disbelief. Nevertheless, she leaves him be.

The Avatar is traveling north, for the Northern Water Tribe, Iroh pieces together quickly. All reports indicate he only knows airbending so far – and what a wonder, a live airbender about a century after Grandfather Sozin’s concentrated efforts to stamp out all survivors. Well, maybe Iroh will finally hear from Pakku soon. The master waterbender was always recalcitrant about keeping in touch.

* * *

Two months later, a hassled messenger hawk tracks down Iroh making his way north in an irrational hurry to overtake the amassing invasion force he has no hopes of getting ahead of. The hawk stiffly accepts the treat he feeds it and launches back into the sky with great prejudice.

Like the shelled layers of a puzzle box, he unfolds his way to the final encrypted message.

_The Avatar arrived with a blue-masked vagabond. Was the boy always willing to fight anything that moved, or did that happen after he lost his name? Don’t come up here. The Avatar’s companion is almost finished training._

Iroh picks up his pace regardless. Even if neither he nor his return letter can surpass the now-Admiral Zhao, Pakku’s letter belies a wealth of unspoken issues.

* * *

When Iroh was young and eager, charming the reluctantly impressed officer instructors at the military academy who were under strict orders from the Fire Lord to give the crown prince no preferential treatment, the academy’s headmistress took all the cadets on a trip almost half-way around the world to the middle of the ocean. She explained nothing and the students all shut up and followed orders after she personally tossed overboard the first offender who tried asking for clarification. On the sixth day of discovering who were too prone to seasickness to ever pursue a career in the navy, the headmistress called everyone onto the ship’s deck.

“Pair up,” she barked. “And don’t look at the sky.”

They lined up on the deck in the darkening sunlight, then she announced, “You have until the sun returns to defeat your opponent.”

It had been a nasty surprise when their bending went out.

Iroh experiences an alarm just as strong when the full moon’s light suddenly shifts red and stays so through the night.

* * *

After the full moon wanes and rumors of the disaster at the North Pole flood the land, Iroh receives a second letter.

_Your masked fellow is involved in dangers he cannot control. The Avatar will be at Omashu._

Iroh rolls the thin paper into a ball in his tense hand and chars it into ash with a single flash. Spurred by this entirely new danger the young Avatar hurtles himself towards, Iroh quickly course corrects, now more anxious than ever.

Captain Jumo under Colonel Naoto’s command hides Iroh among his troops marching south to reinforce the regiment holding down Omashu. It makes the poor man uneasy to see his prince out of his armor, so to alleviate his nerves, Iroh dons his officer’s uniform once more, as distasteful now as it had been for years.

Before Lu Ten died, before Jeong Jeong deserted and left behind a strongly worded reprimand to his lord and crown prince, Iroh foolishly thought he’d already plumbed the depths of his distaste for his nation’s reprehensible violence. Jeong Jeong left behind no wife, no sons, but Fire Lord Azulon sent Iroh out himself to arrest the admiral’s sister. When he arrived at the house, Lu Ten at his side in his new armor, she’d already been waiting at the front gate, sharp sword in hand and anger compressed hard into a shining diamond.

“I considered killing myself in defiance,” she said, low and wretched, in greeting while Iroh’s men bristled, pikes lowering. “Rather than let you have your way. My brother spoke highly of you, but he was wrong. You’re just like your father.”

She spat at his feet. Instantly, the men shouted and Lu Ten’s hands snapped out to strike. They quelled uneasily at Iroh’s raised hand. “By decree of the Fire Lord, you are under arrest,” he read, emotionless and bloodless. She glared at him through the whole proclamation, through the men disarming her, through the shackles clamped on her wrist, through the whole house brought out for arrest as well.

The last words she hissed before she vanished from his sight were, “Don’t think for a second that your family’s any more protected from your mistakes than mine.”

In four more years, Ba Sing Se proved her right and Iroh awoke to the heavy nightmare that he hadn’t yet dived to the deepest depth of his disdain for the war his grandfather started.

Captain Jumo’s troops reach their destination a day earlier than scheduled and he releases them from duties for that extra day, to their exhausted relief. He knocks before entering Iroh’s tent, tense and worried.

“Please keep your armor on, Prince Iroh,” he says and assists in packing Iroh’s few belongings. Jumo wraps a teapot in thick cloth while explaining, “I’ve been getting letters from the eastern front. The situation there is going to explode soon.”

So Okazana did get Iroh’s message.

“I’ll be careful,” Iroh assures the captain. “You take care as well, thank you for accompanying me south. Now, where’s this mad king of Omashu being held?”

* * *

Among the rumors from the failed assault, there’s a riptide undercurrent of haunting fears. Shuddering whispers passed along one exaggeration after another: enraged great spirits, a cyclone of air and spheres of ice, a howling firestorm of black flame. Each tale surmounts the previous with its sensationalism. Iroh picks through for the truth and dismisses the rest.

* * *

As Azula rightly accused him, Iroh didn’t look when he should have. He’ll never be able to swallow his regret for realizing too slowly, for moving too slowly, for searching too slowly until he can lay eyes on his nephew and feel the boy’s shoulders under his hands.

His nephew’s face is scarred, it must be, but how much? What does it look like? All the posters announcing his banishment crumbled into dust when his name disappeared, and no one bothered making a new set afterwards. And that had only been an artist’s approximation. Surely what Ozai did wasn’t that large, that horrid. Or what if it’s larger, the artist curbed by a lingering concern for a disgraced prince?

Can his nephew still see? Can he still hear? He can obviously fight, but he had three years forcing him to survive or else die.

When Iroh sees the sky bison in the air, he takes off at a run.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don’t ask me where Okazana came from, he was originally supposed to have only one line. 
> 
> Alright y’all, I’m gonna be putting this series on a backburner for a while so I can wrap up a couple of other wips and projects. But as soon as I finish posting a new ATLA AU fic about ghosts – it’s a fun one – we will be back to see how far I can shotput canon into oblivion.


	2. SOME SCRIBBLES

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some spoiler-free scribbling from my planning process for Part One of "i promised you no such thing as heaven."
> 
> Basically a wall of Zuko.

### "how many different ways can i fiddle with a boy's hair"

Forgot where this came from. Think pretty early on getting a feel for Zuko around when he meets up with Aang, Katara, and Sokka.

Zuko has long hair and it's gonna give Sokka a heart attack. 

Something to look forward to.

### Various Images From the North Pole

Chapter Six, aka: "that one chapter where Zuko had three hairstyles in it"

### Randomly Another "Fox"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, I'll be seeing y'all later!


End file.
